Disclaimer: i do not own anything all recognizable characters are party to their original owners who are not me. Arrisa though is mine!

A/N: Okay so as I promised I pulled the other version of this story to rework it as it needed some. It has gotten longer and a little more detailed and will be rated M beginning in chapter 7 so fair warning to all... Thank you to Hippogriff-Tamer who continues to Beta most of my stories including this one. PLEASE do not forget to leave a like and review as they make my day :)

Chapter 1

"Be careful what you wish for," Elijah said as he brought his foot down on the ground opening up a huge hole in the ground. He grabbed Elena and pulled her down into the hole with him. Once there he compelled her to stay there until after midnight and then left her there alone, jumping back out of the hole he had created. Elena looked around the cave grumbling to herself as she did so. How dare he! He knew she hated to be compelled and he normally would never had done it but she could understand why he had. She had essentially betrayed him the night before. He had trusted her to tell him what his mother was up to and she had lied to him. She really couldn't blame him for leaving her here alone. At least he hadn't left one of his siblings with her or she would most likely be dead right now. She knew she had been left there so that she could not cause any more harm to his already fractured family. She could only hope that he and his siblings were able to stop their mother from fulfilling her plan.

She slid down and sat with her back to the cave wall looking up at the hole above her.

She began to wonder if he would return for her once his mother had been taken care of or if she would have to find her own way out of the cave on her own. As she sat, she began to think of what had brought her to this point in her already crazy life. Her parents had died a little over a year ago, her aunt had become her and Jeremy's guardian, her best friend had been turned into a vampire, and her other best friend found out she was a witch. She had dated a vampire and his brother was also in love with her. She and her aunt had been used in a sacrifice to undo a curse on Klaus, one of the oldest vampires in history. Tyler had triggered his werewolf gene and then turned into a hybrid. She had been kidnapped and used as a pawn by the same man that had left her in this hole. The same man that she had come to admire and trust and the same man she had betrayed. The same man that she had come to care deeply for and might even love. She knew she should have said something to him about what his mother had planned but instead she had lied to him. She still felt the guilt that had plagued her when it had happened and she knew that he would never forgive her for her actions. Bringing her knees up, she placed her head on them trying hard not to cry.

Hours later, she lifted her head and noticed that the sun had set and it was dark out. She could barely make out the full moon in the distance and wondered what time it was as her cell had died a while ago. She knew it was not yet midnight for the compulsion would have worn off or lifted if it were. She wondered briefly if the Originals had found a way to thwart their mother's attempt to have them killed. The thought of her favorite Original dead brought a wave of sadness through her that she could not understand.

Standing, she decided that she should at least make an attempt to get out of these caves, even though she had been compelled to stay in them until after midnight and began walking away from the only light source the cave offered. Slowly she made her way towards the cave where no vampire could enter, as she knew that there was an exit out of the caves near there. She was ready to get home as she was tired and hungry having been stuck in the cave nearly the whole day and she wanted to know if he had been successful in thwarting his mother.

As she walked around the bend she saw a light ahead of her and quickly made her way over to where she had seen the light only to come face to face with Katherine or at least she thought it was Katherine.

"Katherine? What are you doing here?" she asked confused.

"Hello, Elena. My name is Arrisa," the other girl said with a smile.

Shock was currently the only thing Elena could feel. How? She couldn't think. "What are you?" she finally managed to ask. "Are you a doppelganger too?" 'Of course she is a doppelganger, Elena, she looks exactly like you!' she heard a voice whisper sarcastically in her head.

"To answer your first question I am a spirit and the answer to your second question is yes, I am."

Elena found herself sitting on the cave floor once more her legs just could not hold her any longer, the shock of learning that there was yet another like her was just to0 much for her over taxed brain to take in at the moment. "But if you're a doppelganger then whose doppelganger are you? I mean Katherine is Tatia's and I am Katherine's so..."

The spirit smiled at the young woman then answered. "I am Amara's doppelganger and actually I am the first doppelganger to ever live. I proceed Tatia by a good 500 years."

Elena didn't think she could be any more shocked but the spirit seemed to find ways to do just that. There had been another doppelganger before Tatia! "How? I thought Esther created the doppelganger as a way for Klaus to break his curse? And who is Amara?"

"Amara was the first immortal woman and the originator of our bloodline. She was created using the same spell that made the Originals vampires. She was handmaiden to a powerful witch named Qetsiyah. Anyway somehow she betrayed the witch and the witch cast a spell making her the anchor to the Other Side. But in order to balance things out the witch also created a double of Amara to be born every 500 years, give or take a few years of course. As you know Esther modified the spell that made her children vampires, but she did not create the doppelganger. She would of course have tried to make you believe that it was she who created us, but that is a lie."

"So what makes our blood so special? I mean I understand that we were created to be a shadow of someone else, that is kind of a given, but how did that make our blood so powerful?"

"When Qetsiyah created us she made sure that our blood would be sought after to help any witch in need of a boost to his or her spells as punishment for Amara's betrayal of her. She was the one to make our blood so powerful. And so we are sought for only what our blood can do for others and never for ourselves. We are simply objects to those who would use us for their own gain."

Arrisa stopped and allowed the current doppelganger to absorb what she was being told before continuing. "When I was alive the doppelganger was cursed. Mind you this was five hundred years before Tatia was even born. You see a powerful warlock wanted me for himself and I refused him. In doing so he cursed my line to die before or on their nineteenth birthday, which incidentally is when I died, but he also saw that there would come a doppelganger from my line that was so filled with light that they would change the course of history forever. You, Elena, are that light. The warlock foresaw a powerful witch turning her family into something unnatural and then saw the light dwelling with this new species and giving them something that they had given up ever having. You see your blood is special Elena. Not only are you the Doppelganger of Light but you are destined to become like them. Turned in the same exact way. And when that happens your blood will give them the gift they have waited for, for a very long time."

"What does that mean exactly? How will I be turned like them? Are you telling me that I am to become an Original? And how will my blood be of any use once I am turned?"

"Yes, you will become an Original. And like I said your blood is special. You are of the light making your blood far more precious than any of your predecessors."

"How?" Elena asked still very confused by what she was being told.

"You are a pure soul and it is that purity that makes your blood far more powerful. There is a reason your name means light, Elena. And yes, you could argue that Katerina's name means purity but even though her name means purity she is anything but pure. You are the only doppelganger who actually lives up to what her name actually means. You were born with so much compassion and loyalty already ingrained within you. It's why you always put others before yourself or you try to keep those you love from harm. It's your light that is guiding you to do these things. You are also the only doppelganger who has not had a child out of wedlock. That alone is proof of your purity. That is not to say you have not been intimate with anyone, it just means you have not allowed yourself to bring a child into the world without his or her father there with you. "

Elena couldn't think straight. She could not believe what the spirit was telling her.

"Does Esther know who or rather what I am?" Elena asked fear coloring her tone.

"No, she does not and be thankful that she doesn't though in retrospect if any of the Original family had mated while still being bound it would have broken the spell Esther placed on her family."

"WHAT?!" she exclaimed loudly before huffing out, "Great! Just great. There was a way to stop her and I am only finding this out now!"

"And would you or your friends been so eager to mate with your soul mates to break the curse?" Arrisa countered raising an eyebrow at her counterpart.

That stopped Elena and she looked at her ancestor in shock. "Our Soul Mates?"

"Oh yes, you, Caroline, Bonnie and Stefan are all mates to the Originals."

'No...No...NO!' Elena thought and then looked at the spirit again trying to see if it had been a joke but the look on her face told Elena that she was not lying. She didn't have to be told who her Soul Mate was, for she had a very good idea who he was. The thought that he was hers as much as she was his made her heart thunder in her chest though not from fear. "Elijah," she breathed out the name softly a small smile playing on her lips.

"Yes, he is your soul mate just as Kol is Bonnie's, Niklaus is Caroline's and Stefan is Rebekah's."

"But Bonnie is a witch she can't turn or she loses her powers!"

"And that is where you come in, Elena. I told you your blood is special. You will be the one who turns her, for no one else can do it or she will lose her powers. By you changing her she will retain her powers and will become a hybrid much like Niklaus."

"I want to believe everything you say but you have to understand it's difficult. There is little trust and very little love lost on the Mikaelson family. Especially now that I have completely and regrettably betrayed them."

"And it is a betrayal that will be forgiven. In fact, he has already forgiven you for what you did. He understands why you did it, just as you understand why he left you here in this cave. Family. You both have a strong affinity for your families and you both would do anything to protect them. And no matter what you think your soul mate does love you he just doesn't realize it yet. Like you he has to come to terms with what he is feeling. I told you before that we are not meant to find love and we aren't, but you Elena, you inspire it in those around you. The people around you seek it out because of you."

"But he said that he wouldn't make the mistake of falling for the doppelganger again."

"Yes, and at the time he meant those words. But now that he has gotten to know you, his opinion has changed. He doesn't want to love you, because he believes it is a weakness. That and he doesn't feel he has a place in your life right now."

"Because of Stefan and Damon, I am assuming?"

"Yes, you would be right. You must come to terms with how you feel for both of them and how you feel for your soul mate. Just because he is your soul mate does not mean that he is your true love," Arrisa said though she failed to tell her descendant that Elijah was indeed her true love and soul mate. She knew Elena had to figure that out on her own.

As she watched her descendant struggle to come to a conclusion as to who really held her heart she asked, "Would it help if I showed you what they were like as humans? Would that help you understand the Original Family better?"

Started out of her deep contemplation, Elena answered, "It might, but how are you going to do that?"

"Just relax," Arrisa said placing her hands on either side of Elena's head.

As soon as the spirits hands made contact with her head Elena's head was filled with images that were just too real to be imagined. The first thing she saw was Arrisa as she had been as a human and then everything that had happened to her. She saw the warlock curse her family line and the vision he had received. She could clearly see each of the Originals as they went about their normal human lives. She saw how powerful Kol had been, how Mikael abused Klaus, the loneliness Rebekah experienced, the affection that Elijah held for her ancestor Tatia. She could see and almost feel it all. Then she saw what happened after they were turned and the emptiness that filled each of them. She watched as one by one they each turned off their emotions, closing off a part of themselves from everything but family. She then saw all her friends with the Originals in a setting that was not familiar. She saw that each couple was happy and there was something else there that both startled and confused her. By the time Arrisa removed her hands Elena had tears in her eyes. It was no wonder they acted the way they did. She could not fault them for things beyond their control. Her heart ached for each of them.

"Now do you understand? Now do you see that they need you as much as you need them?" Elena could only nod her heart still aching for the pain they each had experienced. "Elena, what you saw at the end will come to pass if you do give in to your soul mate. It is your choice to turn or not. No one will force this on you, not me, not the spirits and certainly not your soul mate. Though he will want you turned just so he will have you by his side for all eternity but he will not force it on you. But remember this you have only until your nineteenth birthday to make a decision. I would try to make the decision sooner rather than later. I will leave you now but should you need me call my name and that goes for your friends as well," with those words the spirit faded away leaving Elena once more alone.